


Lifeline

by junkie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pre-Series, Weecest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 05:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2681081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkie/pseuds/junkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A whole week without Dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized that the last story I wrote was published here almost exactly one year ago. Yikes! A very Happy Thanksgiving to all! I, for one, am thankful for brothertouching.

Sam always wakes in a new state, and not a state of mind either— a state of the union, one of the lower forty eight. It makes a home base obsolete, unless home is where the heart is. But Sam would mar and maim for a fireplace or a real big refrigerator, the kind with dispensing water and ice. Luxury. Sam can’t stand the Northeast most of all, because he can sleep through a collection of states in one hard snooze. Like he’s always unconscious. It’s starting to feel that way, at least.

But here, out West, it’s better. He passed out in Wyoming and comes to in Wyoming. Dad’s driving them into the infinite horizon, Tetons reflected in the rearview. He’s slapping the wheel to CCR and doesn’t notice Sam’s graceless return. But Dean does.

“Ooh baby, I love your way,” he sings, as Sam wipes drool off his cheek.

Sam fine-tunes an expression of perfect bitchiness and surveys the landscape outside. Nothing but flat, white expanse. Tussled tufts of brown grass scattered. He presses his cheek to the cold window and sees a mass on the side of the highway. Roadkill popsicle.

“Poor sucker,” Dean says, without pity.

In whispers, they keep a running tally of deer corpses. After an hour, they’re up in the hundreds. Despite the morbidity (or maybe because of it— Sam thinks they will never stop bonding over death), Sam feels suddenly and inexplicably happy, all the way happy, like he’s holding a warm stone in his gut. He laughs when his brother pretends to flick dust motes at him.

“You’re such a moron,” Sam says, kicking Dean’s foot at the heel, so it jerks up, a tic of the muscle. Sam is enchanted; he falls deep into the idea that their actions are tied together, a rope and pulley system. He moves his right arm and Dean mirrors him, unthinking. Sam turns a grin on him.

“Hey, don’t look out my window, bitch,” Dean says.

“Can’t prove it, jerk,” he replies.

“Boys,” says Dad, but it’s not quite his warning tone. Even still, his soldiers straighten up, stat. If Sam wasn’t trained to hear his father’s voice through death and din, it would have been lost between the music, the hum of the road. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me!” screams the tape deck. Dad bellows back, “I ain’t no fortunate one!” Dean smirks (such a shit, Sam thinks fondly) and plays chicken with Sam’s leg, rests his paw on the knee and glides up. Typical older brother tease and Sam, the sucker, forgets to breathe. Dad’s eyes are on the road, he thinks stupidly, nonsensically.

“A whole week, Sammy,” Dean whispers.

A whole week without Dad, Dean means, and he tries to look glad, too. A for effort. Sam swats his brother’s hand away like he should. It leaves a bright imprint on his leg.

It’s Christmas break most everywhere so it looked natural this time when Dad pulled him early from school and hit the road. There’s a naughty spirit in Laramie and one of Pastor Jim’s contacts has some property nearby, so they lucked out. Dad said he would go alone, ignoring Dean’s protests—give them time to recupe.

Point is, he and Sam had words—Dean occupying no man’s land, as usual—and that left them skittish of each other. Dad hadn’t met his eyes in days. Sam couldn’t wait for the time away. Away from school, away from hunting, away from Dad. A spirit like that, plus the drive—a week, guaranteed, maybe more. Sam can still remember when the idea shook him to his roots, but now he holds his breath until Dad is gone.

**

They’re scuffling up the drive to another nondescript cabin. But this cabin is their cabin, at least for the week. The sun punishes the thin snow, reflecting punishing whiteness. When Sam looks up from his shoes to the hunch of his brother’s back, he’s dizzied by the light. 

“Thirty miles from town,” Dad says. “Good for keeping your heads down.”

“Yessir,” Dean replies.

Dad and Dean are just ahead, walking in step like it’s practiced, hands shoved deep in their leather jackets. Sam mashes his hands in the sleeve of his sweatshirt, rolls lint between his fingers. He squints at the path ahead and kicks a stone between his feet. Back and forth, back and forth.

“Hurry it on up, Sammy,” says Dad.

Sam has this idea of drifting so far behind that he gets lost in the Wyoming winter. The white Wyoming sea. He bobs in their wake like driftwood. He is lethargic and unseen. Dad shoulders through the front door, Dean following, and Sam wonders if he could slip away in that moment before it closes, turn tail and bolt.

Dad gives them the run-down of the place, distracted, one eye on freedom. He gives instructions lazily, expectantly: Keep it spic ‘n span, ration the canned goods, boil the water— “And watch out for Sammy,” he adds, quick words encoded deep. Dean nods and nods.

And then Dad hits the road like a sledgehammer, roars back the way they came, throwing his arm out the window in goodbye. Sam and Dean stand in the drive for a few minutes, shivering. When the faint purr of the Impala fades away, Dean knocks roughly into Sam’s shoulder and they go inside.

 

Long ago, there was a bump at the door, a polite shoe scratching. “Sam,” Dean said, quiet, which meant shut up and scram, and Sam obeyed like he heard a whip—their game of Go Fish abandoned, a quick skitter to the bathroom. He left the door ajar and watched Dean pick up around the motel room. He shoved their dirty dishes under the sink. A ratatatat of knuckles. Dean pushed an armload of greasy fast food containers into the bathroom with Sam, got down to his level and said, “Trust me.”

As if that wasn’t Sam’s programming day and night. He looked rabbit-scared into Dean’s eyes and his brother gripped the back of his neck, hard. He turned up his collar to hide a yellowing bruise. And then he raced away, kicking the salt lines to smithereens in front of the door.

Sam heard Dean greet the phantom caller, and a woman’s voice: “May I come inside?”

Sam tiptoed away from the door and listened to Dean’s exaggerated graciousness (he never talked to a grown-up that way, far as Sam knew). There was a squeak-shuffle of chairs.

“Dean, right?” the woman said, and Dean must have nodded, because she continued, “Looks like your daddy isn’t around. That happen much?”

“He’s out getting groceries,” Dean said. “Ma’am.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen soon,” he replied.

“Hm,” she said. There was a long pause. Sam heard fingernails on the table, tap tap tap. 

“Going to Yellowstone in a few days,” Dean said. “We gotta pack up.”

“Go to school around here?”

“No, ma’am. Just a few states over. Road trip.”

“And your brother?”

“Kid’s taking a nap,” Dean said, and Sam thought he heard his voice sharpen, fearful.

“Okay,” the woman said. “Alrighty. Well, Dean, you just call this number if you need anything.”

“I will,” Dean lied. “Thank you.”

She lingered, and Sam held his breath, growing dizzier and dizzier.

“Goodbye, Dean,” she said, and left them alone again. As soon as he dared, Sam slinked out of the bathroom and watched Dean deadbolt the door, replace the salt lines.

Sam asked, “How’d you know it wasn’t a monster?”

“Monsters don’t knock, dumbass,” Dean said. Grinned, yanked him close.

After that, Sam needed Dad less and less—the fire of his absence reduced to embers, a slow warmth, and then nothing. Sam thought only of Dean.

**

Dean finds the beer, and Sam finds a stash of Oreos, sitting pretty between Chaucer and Thucydides. So they decide to splurge— skip right over dinner, toss back a few. They’ve set up camp in the living room. Feet to the fireplace, gloriously alone. They find a dart board strung with cobwebs and Dean manages to get most of it in Sam’s hair, laughing himself to the floor.

“Jesus!” Sam yelps, and pours out the rest of his beer on Dean’s head, swift revenge.

They throw a few good-natured punches. Sam’s too slow—he always seems too slow, nowadays; he gets clocked in the chin and his teeth clash together. His vision vibrates; Dean splits into twin images, returns to himself. He’s still laughing, riotous in his mirth, shaking beer from his hair.

“Playing dirty, kiddo?” he says. “Didn’t know you had it in you.” 

There’s a tinge in his voice, something like pride, and Sam’s heart pounds way too fast, way too hard. His limbs buzz. For a moment he watches Dean’s fingers caress the neck of his beer, but then Sam’s reaching for another, pushing the vision away.

Darkness settles in. They tire of darts, and then they tire of blindfolded darts. Drunk and joyous, Sam recites _The Canterbury Tales_ prologue in Middle English and Dean performs _Bohemian Rhapsody_ a capella, with gusto. They lay shoulder to shoulder on the cold floor and Sam’s world sways and sloshes. The fire starts to die, and Dean starts to nod. But Sam is awake.

“Dean,” he says. “Dean.”

“Huh.”

“I have an idea.”

“Yeah, man.”

“Let’s run away.”

“Fuck you,” Dean murmurs, after a long time.

“Not kidding,” Sam says. “C’mon.”

Dean throws his arms over his face. 

“Too drunk for this,” he groans.

Sam presses on with kid brother tenacity: “Seriously, let’s hike to town, steal some shitty car. Go someplace out of the way. You could get a job— me too, you know? Really get out.”

For a long while, Dean doesn’t answer, and Sam can’t tell if he’s considering or if he’s conked out. But then he breathes deep.

“No, Sammy,” he says, gently. “No.”

“Alright,” Sam replies, but it’s not all right. He’s got a mean mixture of anger and disappointment roiling in his belly. After a long stretch of quiet he pushes to his feet. Dean doesn’t follow.

**

Sam walks a wide circle around the cabin three times, exploring the perimeter. Then he picks up his feet and runs. The moon is the barest sliver and sheds little light to see by, but he navigates without care. The chilled night air burns his lungs. The beer sits uneasily in his gut. At every turn he thinks of peeling off into the night, but Dean has a gravitational pull all his own.

He does a few miles and then throws himself on the hard ground. His head spins and spins. He thinks of Dean. His warm familiarity. The flick of his tongue; his fingers on the bottle. Sometimes, when Sam catches himself thinking about his brother, it feels inevitable. Sometimes, just as often, it makes no sense at all.

“Dude,” Dean calls. “Cut the dramatic gesture and get your ass inside.”

**

Sam gets the shivers and throws up three times.

“You’re an idiot,” Dean tells him. “You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?” But he covers Sam with blankets and runs his fingers through his hair, over the shell of his ear. Sam sinks into contentment like sinking into a hot bath. He lets Dean soothe and worry. He gargles water and brushes his teeth until his mouth burns.

Sam curls under every threadbare blanket in the place, but he’s still freezing. He shivers and chatters. Dean bustles around and hisses _sonofabitch_ under his breath, which seems ludicrously funny to Sam. Hot laughter bubbles up and out, a veritable volcano. But once he starts, he can’t quit. He becomes a juggernaut. His laughter turns frantic, wracks his lungs.

“Whoa, whoa,” Dean says, and Sam imagines himself as a wild thing, close to flight. How many times has he wanted to run, and didn’t? Dean puts his hand on Sam’s head, pushes his fingers into his scalp. The contact opens a dangerous door in him. Sam wrenches himself away.

“I’m calling Dad,” Dean says.

“No!” Sam cries, and like that, he’s no longer laughing. If he calls Dad, this is over, and it can’t be over.

“Sammy—”

“I’m okay,” Sam tells him. “I’m okay, okay?”

And he throws up again.

**

He wakes up cotton-mouthed and sore. Brushes his teeth again, trips over Dean’s discarded t-shirt on the way to the kitchen. Dean is stirring a pot of pork n’ beans, slurping coffee from a Christmas mug. He grins.

“Got some vittles,” he says.

“Pass,” Sam mutters.

“Hey, suit yourself, grumps.”

Sam throws himself into a chair to show Dean just how grumpy he is.

Dean doesn’t bother with a bowl, eats straight from the pot. “Found some cans out back. Target practice later?”

Sam shrugs, stares at his hands. Picks at his cuticles. Dean finishes his breakfast and rinses the pot in the sink.

“You wanna talk about something?” he asks.

“No,” Sam says, and returns to the bedroom. He waits for five minutes to make sure Dean doesn’t follow, then pulls his brother’s t-shirt from the floor. He presses his nose into the collar. Jerks off fast and dirty. Inevitable.

**

Sam recovers from the beer, but this _thing_ in him, this aberration— it gets bigger and bigger, worse. Every look, every touch, curlicues sweetly inside his belly. How had he never noticed how much Dean touched him? Now he counts, can’t help but count. His thoughts twist and twist. His heart trills.

Dean wanders and explores. He delights in finding a shitty rabbit-eared television, complete with VCR. The only tapes they find are home videos, but Dean watches them regardless.

“Dude, wish we had some cable,” he says gruffly, but Sam knows he loves the tapes just as well. Gorging on Jiffy Pop, watching someone’s daughter run screaming through summer sprinklers, Sam decides he kind of loves it too.

**

More than a week, and Dad doesn’t call. Dean gets a serious craving for strawberry rhubarb pie and considers walking the thirty miles to town, but Sam talks him out of it.

“I want some goddamn pie,” he grumbles, flipping through the Sunday paper.

“Thirty miles to town. Sixty roundtrip,” Sam reminds him.

Dean sucks on the tip of his ballpoint pen. Sam tries not to watch.

“Oh, hey, you’ll know this—what’s a three letter word for killjoy?”

Sam rolls his eyes. Dean grins at him, pen between his teeth. Grabs Sam’s hand and lays it palm up. He traces the lines of Sam’s palm with the pen. Sam watches, fascinated, as Dean presses ink into the grooves.

“Lifeline,” he explains, indicating a jagged path. Tracing over another: “Luck lines.”

Dean lays his hand palm up next to Sam’s.

“Dad took me to a palm reader,” he says. “Couldn’t have been more than twelve, thirteen. Something like that. You were at Bobby's and it was like some real quality time, you know? Got ice cream and everything.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well. It wasn’t important.” Dean traces his own palm. “Broken lifeline.” He grins and holds up his hand triumphantly. “Winchester trait.”

**

Dad finally calls. Dean stirs boiling pasta and intones, _Yessir, Yessir, Yessir_. Sam puts down _The Peloponnesian War_ and frowns at him.

“Got another week,” Dean says.

“Figures.”

“Hey,” Dean says, sounding hurt. “I thought you were enjoying this.”

“Sure,” Sam replies. “Just… Dad. You know. It’s typical.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Well, c’mon, Dean. Did you really expect him back in one week? When has he ever come back when he promised?”

“He has a job,” Dean says. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s more important.”

“Did he even ask if we had enough supplies?”

“We’ve got enough.”

“Did he ask?”

Dean is silent.

“Might have to make that trip to town after all,” Sam snaps, and goes back to reading. Dean finishes the pasta without retort and brings him a bowl. Sam thinks, wildly, _I’m in love with my brother._

**

Dean pops open a beer. “Everything in moderation,” he teases. He hands Sam a bottle. _Monopoly_ sits between them. Dean’s already kicking his ass; two hotels and all four railroads—a regular bigwig.

Sam takes swig after swig. He is aware that Dean is watching him, watching his mouth on the bottle. He fixes his lips around the opening, puffs out his cheeks, watches Dean’s hands open and close.

Sam is a corrupt banker, does some dirty dealing. They squabble. Dean pushes, Sam shoves, and then they’re on the floor. Drunk again, tussling. Dean puts two hot, searching hands on Sam, then pulls away.

“Shit,” he says. He breathes hard. “Shit.”

“It’s okay,” Sam says.

“Shit,” he says again.

“Really,” Sam insists.

They stare at each other.

“I’m taking a walk,” Dean says.

Much later, Sam feels Dean climb into bed. He presses his face into Sam’s shoulder, huffs stale breaths against his neck. Sam keeps still. For a few minutes, Dean keeps still, too. Then, he begins to move. He rocks against his back. One hand grips Sam’s hair. He spasms with a soft, broken whimper.

Sam waits until his brother’s breaths even out. He slips a shaking hand into his boxers and brings himself off, delirious.

**

Half-asleep, Sam hears the Impala roar up the drive. He scrambles out of bed, heart galloping. Dean isn’t far behind. Sam is terrified, disoriented.

Dad comes in through the front door, knocking snow off his boots. He regards Sam’s sleep-mussed hair, Dean’s sockless feet.

“Rise and shine, boys,” he says, bigger than life, boisterous. “Monsters wait for no man.”

They pack up in silence. Get dressed in separate rooms. Sam’s stomach is knotted tight. Dad makes a strong coffee and leans against the counter, watching them.

“Sammy,” Dad says, and Sam turns to face him. “Listen. I know you and I don’t always see eye to eye. Hell, I can be real stubborn. You, too. But… what I’m trying to say. You’re my kid. And I’m damn proud of you.”

Sam looks down, then at Dean. He swallows. “Thanks.”

Dad squeezes his shoulder, dumps out the rest of his coffee. He heads out the front door. They hear the car come to life. Dean hefts his bag. Before he can follow, always the good soldier, Sam grabs his arm.

“Don’t,” Dean says.

“Tell me it’s not just me,” Sam says. “Tell me, man.”

Dean startles, glances at the front door. Sam keeps his grip on his brother’s arm. If he lets go, this moment will never come back. He knows.

“Sam, please.” 

Dad honks three times. Hurry up, hurry up.

Dean looks at the door again.

“It’s not just you,” he whispers.

“No way,” Sam whispers back.

Dad yells, “Double-time, boys!” They grab their stuff from the floor. Race to the car, tumble into the backseat. Home, home again.

They fly, eat up highway. Sam absently regards the inked-up lines on his palm. He sneaks a glance at Dean, who turns, too, faithful as a mirror. They share a secret, hysterical grin.


End file.
